Students last month were cleared from both dormitories for the rest of the semester after traces of asbestos were found in a dusty clump on a desk in Shaw Hall.

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Subsequent air quality tests found two asbestos fibers in Shaw Hall and none in Thacher Hall, according to the college.

On Friday, someone sent The Herald-Mail an e-mail saying that students had gathered at an outside trash container at 1 a.m., "shocked" to find personal belongings "overflowing" from it.

One student saw her comforter hanging from the trash container and another student found a ring, the e-mail alleged.

It also alleged that "children's drawings, poems, photos, receipts" and more were found, as well as "ripped clothes and shoes."

However, the college posted a statement at its Web site saying, "There is NO truth to the rumor that student clothing has been destroyed."

Spoiled food items filled up most of the bags thrown into the trash container, Kipetz said. The college has been photographing each food item so that it can figure out how much to reimburse students, she said.

Kipetz said the company decontaminating the dorms accidentally included some personal possessions in bags that were thrown away. Those bags were retrieved.

Kipetz said a few photographs were among those items. They will be cleaned and returned to their owners, she said.

She said she hasn't been able to verify the discarded comforter rumor.

Kipetz said the decontamination is going as planned, which would allow the dorms to reopen in the fall.